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Sarasota Web Design Company

If you are looking to have your website designed by a reputable Sarasota web design company that you can trust to deliver the final product that you expect, you may find that this process is more difficult than initially expected. This is due to a wide range of factors, most importantly because there are so many people who are marketing themselves as Sarasota web design freelancers or contractors, in addition to the endless results that pop up in Google when searching for a Sarasota web design company. Making the right choice can be overwhelming, to a point that many people may end up choosing the first company that seems to be responsive or reliable. These are certainly important factors when it comes to choosing the right web design company for your needs, but do not cover the entire range of considerations that you will need to confront.

Hiring a Sarasota Web Design Company

Before even deciding to hire a web design company, you need to understand why you will get such different results from a professional designer than when you choose to design a site on a template platform, blogging site, or hire the most affordable option.

Take a look below to learn more about why to hire a web design company, some steps to find the right web design company in Sarasota, and more. Even when there is so much focus on third-party platforms and engagement on social media, it is absolutely essential that you have an intuitive, engaging, and informative website that will provide a visitor with a simple way to engage with your business.

Why It Is So Important To Hire a Web Designer

When a possible customer or client visits your website, they expect (either consciously or subconsciously) to be able to move through the site intuitively and be taken along a “funnel” that helps them navigate towards the logical outcome of their interaction with your site. Depending on your service and your goals, this outcome, or conversion, could be a transaction, signing up to your mailing list, contacting you directly for additional information, or a variety of other goals that you and your web designer will work through. All successful websites in 2020 have a series of funnels that provide a smooth experience for a visitor, and clear metrics for you to measure performance by.

When someone sets out to design their own website, these fundamentals of web design may be lost or ineffectually executed due to a combination of things: primarily, that a business owner has a very specific view of their company and their services, and may have a difficult time separating themselves from this view in order to tell a compelling story to their audience. When you work with a web designer, you will have support to address the UX (user experience) and flow of your site, and a writer who can help you tell your story in a clear, compelling way.

We will get into the specifics of why user experience, story, engagement funnel, and more are such important factors below.

User Experience

User experience is one of the core factors of a well-designed website and underlies the entire interaction that a visitor has on your site. This begins with identifying the various tasks or outcomes that a user may want to complete when visiting your site, and then understanding how the site can be designed in order to facilitate that journey. If a user arrives on a site and finds that it is cluttered, unclear, or overwhelming, then they may likely back out of your site quickly in order to find another site with a better experience. How quickly a user leaves your site is known as your “bounce rate,” and Google uses it as one of many ways to measure the quality of a site.

With well-designed user experience at the core of your site, a visitor will be able to arrive at your page with a goal in mind (possibly through a strong Sarasota SEO strategy meant to drive the right traffic to your site), find the information that they need, and ultimately locate a call to action (CTA) that shows them how to “convert” on your site. Conversion should be the ultimate goal for your web design, and a strong designer will help you stay on target.

Testing and Success Metrics

Once the initial goals of your site have been identified and mapped, a web designer will be able to implement initial designs and begin testing your site performance in the real world, with real visitors. This could include A/B testing, user interviews, metric analysis, and more. The most attractive website in the world will not provide much to the owner unless visitors are interacting with the site as they should be.

Your Sarasota web designer will be able to make sense of all of the data produced on your site as traffic increases and will be able to fine-tune the user experience in order to encourage better performance and helping users move towards the desired outcome. If your site is a commerce-based site, then transacting should be a top priority; however, if your site is intended to share information then your top goal may be having someone sign up for your mailing list and/or follow you on a social media site. You will be able to develop a clear understanding of the metrics to focus on when you work with the right web designer.

Standing Out in a Competitive Market

Whether you are building a site for a local plumbing service or a law firm, or if your site is intended to reach a global audience, you can be certain that you are working with a competitive market where many other companies are focusing on presenting a strong, clear image to the world with their website. If you have a high bounce rate on your site, this is a strong indication that people are interested in your service, but find that your site is too difficult or frustrating to work with, which may indicate that you are difficult or frustrating to work with, too. When someone bounces from your site, they are going to the next page in hopes of a better experience and an opportunity to convert.

Whether or not your company is web-based or brick and mortar, a site is often the first impression that a possible client has of you. As with any type of communication or interaction, your first impression will have a lasting impact on your ability to build a relationship with someone, and with so much choice at our fingertips, your first impression may be your only chance to reach a new customer. Hiring a web designer in Sarasota gives you the upper hand by giving you the tools and support you need in order to present yourself in a positive and productive way.

Additional Considerations For a Great Website

Content Marketing

SEO

Links

Navigation

There are many things that you will need to get right in order to share a great website with the world. As mentioned above, the actual aesthetic appeal of a site is important, but there is so much more to a comprehensive site than looks. The following factors are extremely important to a fully-functioning, compelling, and engaging site that goes beyond the user experience, and factors that an experienced web designer in Sarasota can help you with.

Content Marketing

The word “content” can be somewhat confusing and abstract for someone who is not well-versed in marketing, but simply put, “content” is any type of information that you are offering to a visitor. YouTube videos, social media posts, pictures, audio clips, and written information can all be considered as different types of content, and one important thing to think about is what type of engagement you are working towards with the content that you are using.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization marketing has taken off over the past 10 years as people turn to Google more and more in order to find the information, goods, or services that they are searching for. In response to this, Google has spent the past decade working aggressively to develop a strategy to determine the quality of a site, the relevance of the information on the site, and how to rank a particular site based on the search query that a user has entered. In order to make sure that you have a good chance of getting your site to the right audience, you will need to engage in some content strategy of your own, with a strong consideration of SEO.

Links

Another key piece of an SEO strategy is effective linking and backlinking. When the Googlebot web crawler examines a website, it is looking for things like relevant keywords to understand the intention and value of a site, but it additionally looks for links leading to other reputable sites from your page. This is a good indicator that your site is a productive contributor to a healthy, connected internet, and scores you some big points.

Backlinking is equally important and refers to the number of times that OTHER websites refer back to your own as an authority on your particular subject matter. This, as with linking out to other pages, is a great indication to the Google crawlers that your page is trustworthy, reputable, and therefore deserving to rank high on the organic search results.

Navigation

Navigation is a subsection of the user experience, but in addition to the user, Google’s crawlers are looking for simple navigation as a factor as well. When a crawler visits your site to index it, the bot is looking for a simple navigation structure that allows a visitor to move freely and easily from page to page. If the navigational structure of your site seems complicated to the crawler, it will likely be complicated to a human user, which is a good indication that Google does not want to rank your site higher. A high bounce rate is just another indication that this is the case.

Updates and Functionality of Your Site

There are many different template sites that you can choose from if you decide to design your own website, but there are many drawbacks to this decision including the variety of add-ons that you will need to use in order to get the user experience you desire. Each new add-on that you install on your site means that there is an additional update schedule (and variety of compatibility issues) that you will need to keep track of.

Many people find themselves in a position, months or even years down the road, where they are unable to update the core components of their website due to an important add-on that has been discontinued or is no longer updated. As a consequence, your site may start to lose functionalities, slow down, or begin to look very outdated as you struggle to decide the right step to take. Working with an established web designer is a great way to ensure that you will have a resource for when the time comes to make new updates or changes to your existing page.

Finding The Right Web Design Company in Sarasota

Finding a Sarasota web design company that understands your needs and helps you tell your story to the world is the first step in making sure that you have a site that you are proud to share with the world. The team at On The Map Marketing is focused on helping you achieve this because we are the experts in this field. Just as you know dentistry, plumbing, legal defense, or whatever the field is that you are in, we know web design.

Contact our Sarasota web design company today in order to speak with us about your needs, and learn more about how we can help you get the outcomes that you want and deserve. We understand that deciding who to partner with on such an important project can be overwhelming, which is why we pride ourselves on being able to manage your site design while you are able to focus on running your business and growing your client base. We will be happy to discuss past projects that we have worked on similar to your own, how we can help you measure success, and answer any questions that you may have about the web design process, as well as discuss the variety of other web services that we can help you with.